Many have asked, how is Bonafeyed different from the various security technologies in the market today? The answer speaks to our approach and philosophy: “Protect the data don’t just guard it”. The two sound the same but they have vastly different meanings to us. If a solution requires the data to remain in a single domain (network) then more than likely it is based on an approach that controls access to the system in which it resides. For example, looking at a database, access or permission to a database management system determines who can query the data and in theory everything that is available for a specified group. You can see that this is simply a security perimeter or fence such as a firewall, an access portal, or a data loss prevention system. If you find a hole or flaw in the fence, you have visibility and access to the data within the perimeter. If the data is not encrypted, it is exposed. Now consider what happens when the data is shared outside the security “fence”? For example, data that is queried from a database. Technologies such as SSL/TLS and TDE can’t help. Once the data leaves the database and is sent to an endpoint device through maybe a web server, all data security is lost. In other words, the data was guarded but as soon as it leaves the premises (or cloud), there is nothing to safeguard it. When forwarding data to another domain, you hope that the recipient will protect and safeguard the data, but you have no assurances. These real-world scenarios drive how we think about data protection. Our view is to always protect the data no matter where it resides and ensure it stays protected (encrypted), even as the data moves across networks and domains, until such time it is decrypted for an authorized user.